It is true that the declaration said that the Palestinian people should be allowed, within the framework of a peace settlement, "to exercise fully its right to self-determination", and also true that everyone knew that this implied a state. But this is not just a quibble. We and the other Europeans, following the pattern set by Israel and America, continued for years to refuse this further step. Our refusal was of course linked to our refusal to accept the PLO as a negotiator in the peace process, unless they met politically unrealistic preconditions.

Alas, history is repeating itself. We now refuse to accept Hamas, which controls Gaza and is therefore an essential part of any peaceful solution, as part of the peace process until they meet the same preconditions. By the time this nut is cracked the two-state solution – still regarded by all the players including Israel as the only realistic one – will have been rendered even more remote by developments on the ground.

As Roger Cohen wrote in the New York Times on 12 February: "When Arafat and Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn, that destroy-Israel charter [of the PLO] was intact. Things change through negotiation, not otherwise."

There have been plenty of hints from Hamas, as there were from the PLO, that once negotiations start all of this is on the table.

Oliver Miles

Head of Near East and North Africa department, FCO, 1980-83

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